This is a video showing highlights from making a swirl mug. These were gray swirl mugs, though the mug I’m handling might have been a blue one. I used cobalt oxide in my cobalt slip, which is a gray-ish color, so it’s a bit hard to tell the difference between the gray and the blue before they are fired. But it doesn’t matter much, the design is the same.
One of the challenges in making these mugs is to keep the slip fresh and unmarred while I’m adding the handle. It’s impossible to keep it Perfect, but I aim for that. And I find that I can brush a little slip under the handle attachment to help mask the imperfections there - since it’s under the handle it’s really not noticable. I have to let the mugs be a bit on the dryer side before adding the handle (again - so I don’t smudge the slip). I blend a bit of toilet paper into the slip I use for the attachments, which helps ensure that the handles doesn’t pull away from the cup as it dries. This means I have to do a bit of cleanup once the mug is totally dry, as the paper clay slip leaves some unattractive surface cracks in some spots, but it’s well worth it. My handles Never pull away from my cups since I started using paper clay slip, they stay firmly attached through the drying and the firing..